September 24, 2013

Dozens Witness Green Fireball Blazing A Trail Across Texas Skies

Yet another meteor shot across the southern sky this weekend over the Lone Star State, according to multiple eye witness reports. The American Meteor Society (AMS) has now received 76 reports stretching from as far north as Meridian, Oklahoma to as far south as San Antonio, Texas.

The meteor, which appeared as a green fireball, shot through the sky on Saturday night (Sept. 21) at around 9 PM CST. Witnesses from all over Texas, including Abilene, Austin, the DFW metroplex, Houston, and Waco reported seeing the fireball. The AMS say meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere regularly, but often arrive in the daytime, in uninhabited areas, or even during times of bad weather, meaning many go unseen.

Some eye witnesses say they saw a second flash of light following the first brighter flash. But unlike other recent fireballs, video of this meteor has yet to surface. There has also been no official word on the size of the meteor or how long it took to disintegrate as it blazed across the sky.

An eye witness reported the following on the Texas Storm Chasers Facebook page: “i am a firefighter with heart of the pines vfd in bastrop tx. we had just made a run and i was walking my long driveway back to the house with my uniform still on and admiring the starry sky when i saw the most amazing toxic green streak ... it was HUGE! and it silently exploded into a large white ball of light and then dozens of brilliant orange fragments i guess went off in every direction. it was so low to the ground that i dropped to one knee.”

“We saw not just one but two, the 1st a bright shooter with a nice trail, the 2nd was amazing, the brightest meteor we've ever seen with sparkling trail of red yellow and orange. Wish we had our camera, it was one in a million,” responded another from Plano, TX.

Several witnesses say the fireball was quite large and appeared to be very close to the earth.

Last month another bright fireball was captured on video as it screamed over Tennessee. NASA later confirmed this fireball and said it was one of the brightest on record. The August Tennessee fireball also appeared over the northern tip of Georgia early in the morning, around 3:27 AM.

“From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the Full Moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville,” said Bill Cooke, NASA’s head of the Meteoroid Environment Office in a statement.

Cooke claimed this fireball came in at an altitude of 21 miles and clocked in at a final speed of 19,400 mph, setting off a sonic boom as it disintegrated in our atmosphere.

A few days later another bright meteor was seen in Georgia and Alabama by thousands of eye witnesses, many of whom were at a Mumford and Sons concert at the time.

NASA also confirmed this fireball and said it entered the atmosphere at 76,000 mph. This meteor also set off a sonic boom and was also greenish in color, much like this past Saturday's blazer. NASA officials estimate the meteor was the size of a baseball when it flew across the southern sky at 8:18 PM CST.